This invention relates to a portable electronic equipment which has an information storage function inside a body thereof and may be connected to an external terminal equipment such as a personal computer to enable display of required information on a display screen of the body.
Recently, a portable electronic equipment having a circuit substrate, a connector and a liquid crystal cell or the like has been in use in large numbers. In Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-open No. 63-72651, for instance, there is disclosed the technique of a portable electronic equipment in the prior art. A description will be given of its outline with reference to FIGS. 15 and 16 in the following.
In a portable electronic equipment 100, a connector 102 connected to an external data input device 101 such as a personal computer is mounted on the side of a case 106. Also, a display section 107 and an operating section 110 composed of index, page and mode or like operation keys 108 and cursor operation keys 109 are provided on the surface of the case 106.
Further, a storage section composed of a central processing unit (CPU) 103, a random access memory (RAM) 104 and a read-only memory (ROM) 105 or the like and a display device such as a liquid crystal cell are incorporated in the case 106.
Upon receipt of desired data from the external data input device 101 by connecting the external data input device 101 to the connector 102 of the portable electronic equipment 100, this data is stored in the storage section through an input/output control section 111. The data stored in the storage section is processed on the basis of an operating signal from the operating section 110 and is then displayed on the display section 107 through the input/output control section 111.
However, this portable electronic equipment 100 is larger in size than a credit card and does not meet the requirements of xe2x80x9ca PC cardxe2x80x9d of PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) standard type.
In this connection, a telephone directory electronic calculator card has been developed as a PC card of standard PCMCIA type and was patented on Oct. 15, 1996 in U.S.A. (Design Patent No. 374,661). This PC card 200 has an external appearance as shown in FIG. 17 and is combined with a personal computer having a PC card slot to enable reception of data from the personal computer.
The PC card 200 shown in FIG. 17 has already come into the market from IBM Co., Inc. by the trade name of xe2x80x9cChip Cardxe2x80x9d. This PC card is mounted with a display 202 and a keyboard 203 on a body 201 within its limited surface space of a credit card size and also with a connector of PCMCIA type (not shown) and a CPU or the like serving as an operating function of a personal computer on the inside of the body 201 and uses two button batteries. In addition, this PC card is also mounted with a charging back-up battery capable of protecting data even in exchange of a battery for operation.
However, this PC card is mounted with the display and the keyboard or the like within the limited surface space of the credit card size as described above. Incidentally, although the keyboard having a plurality of keys embedded in the surface of the body is convenient in key inputting in case of retrieval in the outdoors or data inputting at a minimum in the place where a user has gone out, the area of the keyboard amounts to a large percentage in the limited area of the body, and the display is accordingly restricted to a narrow area, resulting in an occurrence of a problem that an information content visible at a time is reduced in the extreme.
Further, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 8-58275, there is disclosed a portable electronic equipment as a different instance of the portable electronic equipment having a circuit substrate, a connector and a liquid crystal cell or the like.
A description will now be given of this portable electronic equipment 100 with reference to a fragmentary sectional view of FIG. 18.
The portable electronic equipment 100 includes a circuit substrate 101 and electric components 102 such as IC chips mounted on the circuit substrate 101. The circuit substrate 101 and the electric components 102 are arranged between upper and lower outer metal plates 107 and are sealed up with a seal layer 103.
This seal layer 103 has a plurality of (for instance, four) through holes 104 extending from the front and back surfaces to the circuit substrate 101. A ground electrode 105 is arranged on the circuit substrate 101 at a position corresponding to the through hole 104. Thus, the ground electrode 105 is communicated with the outside through this through hole 104 when the upper outer metal plate 107 is removed.
A coil type metal spring 106 is inserted into each through hole 104 provided in the seal layer 103. When the outer metal plate 107 is stuck on both of the front surface (the upper surface) and the back surface (the lower surface) of the seal layer 103, the metal spring 106 in each through hole 104 is contracted, and one end of each metal spring 106 presses the inside surface of the outer metal plate 107. As a result, the circuit substrate 101 and the outer metal plates 107 are electrically connected together through the metal springs 106, and the outer metal plates 107 are thus grounded. An electric charge is discharged from the circuit substrate 101 through the metal springs 106.
On the other hand, a connector 109 is connected to one end of the circuit substrate 101 through a pair of metal pieces 108. These metal pieces 108 are sealed up with the seal layer 103. The thickness of the connector 109 is set to be equal to the thickness of the seal layer 103.
According to the portable electronic equipment 100 shown in FIG. 18, since four through holes are provided in the seal layer for mounting the metal springs electrically connected to the ground terminals of the circuit substrate, and four metal springs are required, there is a need for more working steps, more part cost and more incorporating steps or the like, resulting in an increase in cost.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a portable electronic equipment, which is based on PCMCIA standard and enables display of more information content on one image screen by enlarging an area of a display within a limited space of a credit card size.
For attaining the above object, a portable electronic equipment according to the present invention comprises a case body composed of an upper cover having a display window, a lower cover and a frame arranged along the peripheral edges of the upper and lower covers facing each other to define an inside space, and inside components including a liquid crystal cell, a circuit substrate and a battery holder and housed in the inside space of the case body, wherein the liquid crystal cell is arranged at a position corresponding to the display window of the upper cover of the case body, the circuit substrate is bonded to a connector including a large number of signal terminals capable of being connected to a connector provided on an external equipment and is arranged on the liquid crystal cell one above the other in the case body, and the battery holder is arranged on one end of the circuit substrate.
According to the present invention, a large integrated circuit is mounted in the limited space to enable expansion of a processing function, and it is possible to increase a ratio of the area of a display to the surface area of the equipment body.